Just in time for next week's JavaOne show, Sun Vice President of Eco-Responsibility Dave Douglas arrived in San Francisco yesterday afternoon. His first stop: the InfoWorld office to chat with me about his first year-plus in his green role; data-center issues confronting IT admins -- and solutions; and dealing with carbon emissions. You can watch the video right here. Dave's been the VP of eco-responsibility at Dave’s been the VP of eco-responsibility at Sun for just over a year now, and judging by our conversation, he has a pretty full plate. No surprise there: Reining in energy waste entails far more than reminding employees to shut off the lights before going home at night.Rather, Dave appears to be involved in multiple areas of Sun’s business, from product development to internal IT operations. (It sounds rather like the chief sustainability officer position I wrote about a while back.) That’s a lot to keep a watchful green eye on, but as he tells it, plenty of folks at Sun believe in the benefits of being environmentally conscientious, so it doesn’t sound like he has to struggle with a corporate culture that’s resistant to making necessary changes toward sustainability.As an example of Sun’s commitment to sustainability and waste reduction, Dave talked to me about how the company has made the annual JavaOne show a little greener this year. For example, Sun saved 4.63 tons of paper by going with virtual direct mail campaigns, online surveys and feedback forms for the show. It also stepped up the use of recycling, and plus Dave noted that site for the show, the Moscone Center, has a 60,000 square foot photovoltaic array on the roof (designed to generate energy savings of 4.8 million kWh annually). The company has made “green” purchasing decisions to keep food-trash compostable. Also, as swag, the company is handing out organic t-shirts, and notepads made from recycled paper and printed with soy ink. Read more about it here.OK, so that alone isn’t going to, say, reduce global warming, but it’s a nice example of relatively little things companies can don’t cost much (or perhaps even save money) and that are good for the environment. And Dave said that next year, the conference will be even greener. I’m curious to see how. Maybe it will take place in Second Life? Like any other high-level techie in the IT industry, Dave is keenly attuned to the data center crisis companies are facing, and he shared some of the strategies he’s been looking at, including consolidation and virtualization. One certainly inventive solution that Sun has devised to help companies deal with the lack of data center real estate is Project Blackbox, a project Dave was involved in developing, and he’s clearly excited about it. For those who aren’t the know, Project Blackbox is a portable data center that can be located just about anywhere, designed to support 10,000 simultaneous desktops without requiring an administrator. (It was also one of InfoWorld’s 12 “crackpot technologies that could transform the enterprise.”)Carbon emissions are gathering more attention in the IT realm, and they’re certainly on Dave’s radar: He’s written about the topic at some length on his blog. Tracking emissions is pretty important, as we’re seeing increasingly strict regulations emerging. We’re also seeing some companies, such as Dell and Yahoo, embracing the notion of carbon offsets and neutrality. On that subject, Dave diplomatically said that Sun is looking at internal ways to reduce its carbon footprint as best it can — in ways that are directly beneficial to business — before exploring something like offsets. In addition to watching the video clip, you can check out Dave’s comments on the topic here in his blog.There was one question I’d meant to ask Dave, but we were running a little short on time (and frankly, I forgot): Earlier this year, Sun joined a bunch of other companies in calling on the federal government to help” achieve sizable, sensible long-term reductions of greenhouse gas emissions” from 60 to 90% reductions below 1990 levels by 2050. Why the wide range of 60 to 90%? Why 1990 levels as the baseline? And why wait until 2050? In other words, is this a sufficiently ambitious goal? I’ll have to ask him next time I see him, I suppose.One last thing: If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area this weekend (perhaps in town for JavaOne), you might want to check out Eco LIVE 2007 on Saturday, May 5. Dave will be one of the speakers, talking the challenges of reducing energy and resource consumption within IT. Robert Kennedy Jr. will be delivering the keynote. The event takes place at the Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 8th Street in S.F., and after the keynote, entrance is free. Technology Industry